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The missing working class - The Washington Post
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Prof. Cherlin of John Hopkins University's sociology department tells us why it is important to revive the term "working class" in America after it has fallen into disuse. He points out that lumping the "working class" with the middle class, as most political leaders including Obama have done, is a serious mistake. As disparities have increased between college educated Americans and non-college educated Americans with only a diploma or less ( who comprise 54% of the adult population with children under age 18), and as the lifestyles, living standards, and educational opportunities of children have diverged for these two groups, this no longer makes sense. One reason for the disuse was that the term was seen as derogatory at some point in time because of media stereotypes of working class people. Yet only by reviivng the term and facing up to the problems faced by this group can America really address its problems as a society, or as a people. Even economic recovery could be elusive without increasing the consumer spending, and by this the incomes and future prospects of the working class. Underneath this is something more important, which has shaped the lives of people throughout the world in the 20th century and into the 21st- the sense of hope and opportunity, of upward economic and social mobility, especially for children of all classes.
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Cherlin, a professor at John Hopkins University, who has written about the decline of the working class family, once portrayed in television shows such as "All in the Family," says the term was seen as derogatory and avoided in recent times. Archie Bunker in that show was seen as bigoted and behind the times. He points out that Obama in his speeches has used middle class frequently but rarely used the term "working class." Yet he points out the Americans with a diploma at most but no bachelors degree, comprise 54 percent of the American people, and are quite different in lifestyle and educational opportunities than the middle class better educated Americans. They also face a different set of problems and obstacles to upward mobility and social mobility. It is right to revive the use of the term "working class" says Cherlin, so that one can wrap ones hands around the problem facing so many Americans. A combination of forces have trampled the future prospects of these Americans, many arising out of forces beyond the control of policy such as automation and global manufacturing, and some such as the problems created by the 2008 financial crisis which were the result of bad decisions by business have only worsened the situation.
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Experts point to the economic anxieties of the white working class in America, a broad group that has increasingly fallen behind as technology advances in the 21st century with globalization and mobile capital, causing serious social fissures in society. One of the dangers is to the ideas of liberal society itself with the rise of cultural illiberalism, such as that presented by the Trump candidacy for president in 2016, and Marie Le Pen's National Front in France, as liberal elites in centre right and centre left lose their hold on working class voters.
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